One early morning in February 1977, the Chicago fire department responded to a call reporting billowing smoke coming from one of the units at the Pine Grove Avenue apartments. After putting out the flames, they discovered that this was much more than a simple fire - it was a crime scene. Inside the smokey apartment, they found the body of Teresita Basa, a middle-aged healthcare worker originally from the Philippines. She had been stabbed to death, and still had the butcher knife lodged in her chest.

When police searched the apartment for any clues as to who may have done this to Teresita - they found only one: a note that read, “Get theater tickets for A.S.” Beyond that, there wasn’t really any evidence left behind and her murder went unsolved for months. That is - until they received a call from a man who claimed to know the name of the killer.

How did he know? He said his wife had gone into a trance while taking a nap, she began to speak in a strange voice, identifying herself as the victim Teresita - and naming her killer as a man named Allan Showery. As you can imagine, initially the police were skeptical - but when they began to investigate Allan Teresita’s killer, things began to line up.

Did Teresita Basa solve her own murder from beyond the grave?

Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/09/17/voice-from-the-grave-evokes-a-murder-trial/13b6d805-2413-4015-b70a-b9b28ab5d40d/

https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Teresita_Basa

https://www.mamamia.com.au/teresita-basa-unsolved-mysteries/

https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/teresita-basa-the-filipino-nurse-who-solved-her-own-murder-a2836-20230707-lfrm

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“If he catches me, he will make me disappear,” was one of the last things wife and mother of three, Amy Mullis, allegedly told the man she was having an affair with just a few months before she was found lying face down with a corn rake sticking out of her back. She would die from her injuries received in what was initially believed to be a freak farm accident. However during her autopsy, it was revealed that Amy had sustained six stabs to her back - when the corn rake only had 4 prongs - meaning, the corn rake entered her back more than once. Police believed she was murdered - and they were looking directly at her husband, Todd Mullis, as suspect #1. However, Todd had an alibi – the couple’s 13-year-old son.

So was Amy Mullis really murdered or was this some kind of freak accident? And if she was murdered, was it her husband who did it? He did have an alibi and there were other people on the farm that day who may have wanted to hurt Amy.

Sources:

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ia-court-of-appeals/2162327.html

https://heavy.com/entertainment/todd-mullis-prison-sentence-trial-update-now/

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/5754855/Todd-Mullis-complaint-and-affidavit.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/09/24/an-iowa-hog-farmer-said-his-wife-fell-corn-rake-jury-ruled-he-used-it-murder-her/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amy-mullis-iowa-farmer-corn-rake-murder/

https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/IdYJaS0S0ka8yqCM9pf2dMRCL2mqFh6C/

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28-year-old Kanika Powell was a young military veteran who lived in an apartment by herself in Prince George County, Maryland. She has been described as a strong, independent woman, whose life experiences made her very capable of handling stressful situations. However, all of that would change in August 2008, when Kanika would receive a series of strange visitors to her front door. The first was a man, dressed in plain clothing, claiming to be an FBI agent, who refused to produce a badge to prove his identity.

Kanika was shaken to her core, especially when this was followed up by a man who claimed to be a FedEx driver, demanding she open her door so that he could deliver a package - one he was not carrying. She thought that someone was after her - and her suspicions were confirmed when on August 28, 2008, she returned home after running some errands and was gunned down in the hallway of her apartment building.

Kanika’s killer has never been caught - leaving her family to wonder who had targeted her and why.

Sources:

https://truenoirstories.wordpress.com/2017/02/21/kanika-powell/

https://truecrimedaily.com/2015/10/09/unsolved-national-security-worker-gunned-down-amid-mysterious-circumstances/

https://cdn.unsolved.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/74-A-Killer-Comes-Knocking.pdf?x38205

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John Christie was a World War 1 and 2 veteran who lived with his wife Ethel in the bottom floor flat of 10 Rillington Place, a low-income apartment building in London’s Notting Hill district. In the 50s, there was a media storm when one of the tenants living in the same building as John, a man named Timothy Evans, was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and baby daughter - despite claiming innocence. John and his wife were star witnesses in that trial, testifying that their upstairs neighbours, Timothy and his wife, argued constantly and the night before her murder they had heard a loud thud. Timothy was hanged for his crime - and life went back to normal for John and Ethel Christie.

That is - until another tenant of 10 Rillington Place made a horrifying discovery: the bodies of six women hidden in the walls, floors and garden of the building. One of the bodies found was Ethel Christie, John’s wife - leading the police to believe that John Christie had murdered her along with the other women hidden in his flat. This respected war veteran was a serial killer - and what he did to his victims is particularly disturbing.

With this shocking revelation, many wondered if John Christie had also killed Timothy Evan’s wife and baby years prior, meaning they had hanged an innocent man - a grieving husband and father. John Christie would be dubbed the Sex Strangler of Notting Hill - but had he also framed Timothy for murder?

Sources:

https://www.grunge.com/669825/the-messed-up-truth-of-serial-killer-john-christie/

https://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/christie-john.htm

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/a-timeline-of-john-christies-crimes-and-their-discovery-and-the-bits-rillington-place-missed-out/

https://allthatsinteresting.com/john-christie

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In 1950 Timothy Evans was accused of murdering his wife Beryl, and their baby girl, Geraldine. Timothy, a simple man who couldn’t read or write, lived with his little family in London’s Notting Hill district in the top floor flat. He refuted the accusations, instead claiming that it was actually his downstairs neighbour, John Christie, who killed his wife and daughter during a botched home abortion.

John Christie was a World War 1 and 2 veteran who lived in the ground floor flat with his wife, Ethel. He would serve as the chief prosecutor’s witness during Timothy’s murder trial, where Timothy was ultimately convicted and sentenced to hang. But just three years after Timothy’s execution, a shocking discovery would be made. Bodies would be discovered in the walls and under the floorboards of John’s ground-floor flat.

Had Timothy been telling the truth about his neighbour being the real killer? Was this respected war veteran, John Christie, actually a serial killer, who framed Timothy for murder? And what impact would all of this have on England’s justice system?

Sources:

https://criminology.research.southwales.ac.uk/criminology-blog/tragic-life-and-death-timothy-evans/

https://home.heinonline.org/blog/2021/09/crime-of-the-century-the-case-of-timothy-evans/

https://www.madeinmanchester.tv/timothy-evans

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In the early morning hours of September 1st, 2017, around 1 am, a North Carolina 911 dispatcher receives a phone call from 29-year-old Matthew Phelps, an aspiring pastor. He says, “I think I killed my wife. I had a dream, and then I turned on the lights and she’s dead on the floor…I have blood all over me and there’s a bloody knife on the bed and I think I did it. I can’t believe this.”

Matthew claimed that he had “accidentally” stabbed his wife to death while under the influence of cough medicine. 29-year-old Lauren Hugelmaier lay on their bedroom floor, having been stabbed 123 times. While the medicine that Matthew had taken can cause euphoria, agitation, and even psychoses, would a jury believe it as a defence to murder? Perhaps not, after Matthew’s dark side, history of violence and a secret Instagram account was revealed.

If you or someone you know may be in a dangerous relationship, domestic violence, or an abusive relationship, call The National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1–800–799–7233 or go to www.thehotline.org.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPJVefybEaM

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/family-woman-killed-cold-medicine-murder-filled-regret/story?id=58549513

https://heavy.com/news/2017/09/lauren-hugelmaier-phelps-murder-husband-photos-facebook-instagram-obituary/

https://people.com/crime/cold-medicine-killer-pastor-pleads-guilty-murdering-wife/

https://medium.com/crimebeat/the-cough-syrup-killer-the-case-of-lauren-hugelmaier-a42d15c98653

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article219420090.html

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In the early morning hours of May 24, 1987, Kenneth Parks got up from the sofa where he had been watching TV, got into his vehicle and drove 20 km - or 12 and a half miles - from his home in Toronto to his in-laws home in Scarborough. He used the spare key that they had given him to enter the residence and proceeded to the master bedroom, where he found his mother and father-in-law sleeping in their bed. He proceeded to bludgeon his mother-in-law with a tire iron, which he had brought with him from home, before proceeding to choke his father-in-law. Then, he got into his car and drove to the nearest police station, where he turned himself in saying “I think I have just killed two people.”

And open and shut case for murder right? Wrong. Because Kenneth Parks had a story that could save him from sentence of life in prison. He claimed that he was sleepwalking during the murder and was completely, unconscious and unaware of what he was doing until he surrendered to the police. While sleep experts battled the prosecution in court, testifying in support of Kenneth Parks’ sleepwalking defence, much of the public at the time thought he was lying - making up this story of sleepwalking so that he could get away with murder.

Kenneth Park’s sleepwalking murder trial was front page of papers around the world as it set a precedence for the level of responsibility one has for their actions done when in a state of sleep.

Sources:

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2006/10/27/man-acquitted-of-sleepwalking-murder-running-for-school-trustee-in-durham/

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/02/if-you-kill-someone-in-your-sleep-are-you-a-murderer#:~:text=Despite%20all%20the%20evidence%20that,on%20to%20have%20six%20children.

https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/907/index.do

https://www.chicagotribune.com/1988/07/17/sleepwalking-canadian-walks-on-murder-charge/

https://www.evidencelockerpodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-145-homicidal-somnambulist-ken-parks-canada

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14-year-old British Columbia teenager Reena Virk struggled to fit in. She was relentlessly bullied from elementary school, all the way to high school. Self-conscious about her looks and struggling with her strict religious parent's rules, times were tough. So on Nov. 14, 1997, when she received a phone call inviting her out to a social gathering, she gladly accepted. She had no idea the invite was all a part of a revenge plan - retaliation for spreading rumours about one of the other girls. Shortly after arriving, she was swarmed by a group of 8 teenagers and severely beaten. When she tried to stumble home, two of them followed her and dragged her down below a bridge, where they continued to beat her before drowning her in the water. Reena’s brutal murder at the hands of a group of teens prompted people across the country to take a closer look at growing violence and bullying amongst young Canadians - and it’s a reminder of the importance of raising an empathetic, caring future generation.

Sources:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12405821/Harrowing-real-story-teen-Reena-Virk-brutally-MURDERED-Hulu.html

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/social-services-failed-miserably-virk-family-says-1.573270#:~:text=She%20told%20horrific%20tales%20of,put%20her%20in%20foster%20care.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/girl-boasted-of-role-in-killing-crown/article1037718/

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-no-one-stood-up-for-carson-crimeni-or-for-reena-virk-as-they-died/

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/soul-of-kindness-daughters-murder-turned-suman-virk-into-tireless-anti-bullying-advocate

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvpqa7/the-unforgettable-story-of-a-bc-teen-murdered-by-her-peers

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